plication and a
steady perseverance of purpose proportioned to the means furnished
by the will of the founder, and to the greatness and simplicity of
his design as by himself declared,--'the increase and diffusion of
knowledge among men,'--it is no extravagance of anticipation to declare
that his name will hereafter be enrolled among the benefactors of mankind."

In the execution of this law, the President immediately upon its
enactment appointed Richard Rush, a distinguished lawyer of
Philadelphia, to proceed to London, and take the necessary steps
to obtain the legacy. To the accomplishment of this purpose a suit
was soon thereafter instituted by Mr. Rush. The hopelessness of
its early termination in an English Chancery Court of that day will
at once occur to the readers of Dickens's famous "Jarndyce against
Jarndyce." It was truly said, that a chancery suit was a thing
which might begin with a man's life, and its termination be his
epitaph.

A wiser selection than Mr. Rush could not have been made. He
entered upon the work to which he had been appointed, with great
determination. In a letter to our Secretary of State just after
he had instituted suit, he says:

"A suit of higher interest and dignity, has rarely perhaps been
before the tribunals of a nation. If the trust created by the
testator's will be successfully carried into effect by the enlightened
legislation of Congress, benefits may flow to the United States,
and to the human family, not easy to be estimated, because operating
silently and gradually throughout time, yet not operating the less
effectually. Not to speak of the inappreciable value of letters
to individual and social man, the monuments which they raise to
a nation's glory often last when others perish, and seem especially
appropriate to the glory of a Republic whose foundations are laid in
the assumed intelligence of its citizens, and can only be strengthened
and perpetuated as that improve."

The successful termination of the suit came, however, sooner
than could have been expected; and in May, 1838, the amount of the
legacy, exceeding the substantial sum of five hundred thousand
dollars, was received and invested as required by law.

The facts stated were communicated by special message from President
Van Buren to Congress, in December, 1838. Attention was then called
to the fact that he had applied to persons versed in science,
for their views as to the mode of disposing of the